Goodwood 81st Members’ Meeting

A few years ago, I became a member of the Goodwood Road Racing Club (GRRC) just so I could buy tickets for the Members’ Meeting: That is how great this race event is!

While I live too far away to make regular use of my membership, I have managed to make the 460km return trip to the rolling South Downs where the Goodwood Motor Circuit is located at least once a year, sometimes twice. The original Members ‘ Meeting (MM) ran from 1948 until 1966, with 71 meetings taking place in that time, and after a 48- year hiatus was re-started in 2014, and I’ve been lucky enough to attend for each of the last three years. It’s a wonderful event, with only one problem – the English April weather! Last year it had rained so much that visitors planning to drive there in their classics were actually advised not to, since the parking areas were so waterlogged.

This year, we have had what has been one of the wettest first three months of the year since records began, and yet, despite a warning from the GRRC that many of the parking areas were soft both underfoot and under-tyre, last year’s history did not repeat itself, and for the most part the ground was OK for both car and foot traffic. Indeed, the weekend itself proved almost unseasonably warm – easily the most pleasant of my (now four) MM visits.

As usual, there is so much to see and do at Goodwood that it’s impossible to cover it comprehensively, and I know some of you will have watched the live stream on You Tube (and some of the action can be enjoyed in small teasers such as below – while other races can be seen in full as well), so I will content myself by trying to give you some impressions of my day at MM81.

I and a fellow enthusiast parked up just before the gates opened at 7.30, and for the first hour or so we wandered around the paddocks wide-eyed with delight. Highpoints were many, but the most exciting area for me was that for the Can-Am cars. These weren’t even going to be racing, but did a number of demonstration laps that reminded us all of the spectacle, sound and fury of that short-lived category of racing. That spectacle was created by huge machines such as the Porsche 917/30 with up to 1600 bhp (!) available, and vast rear – and in some cases, front – spoilers to keep these brutes on the track. Of particular interest was the collection of Shadow UOP cars, including the DN4 which was reunited with its 1974 championship winning driver Jackie Oliver. These were truly extraordinary race cars to see and hear.

It was a surprise to see a Lotus sharing the paddock with these monsters, gleaming in the morning light in the famous Gold Leaf colours, since neither of us was aware of Lotus ever competing in the Can-Am series, and for good reason – they didn’t. However, it seems that back in 1969, Colin Chapman and co. made plans to build a car – the Type 66 – for the 1970 season. In the end, Grand Prix racing took precedence and the 66 never got built, but in 2023 the company decided to manufacture 10 examples based on the original technical drawings and make them available to buy at £1m each to celebrate 75 years of Lotus, hence this stunning modern take on a Can-Am car.

I almost over-dosed with excitement at seeing two of the most beautiful sports racing cars ever built, a 1964 Porsche 904 Carrera GTS alongside a 1966 906 – I used to have a Corgi model of one of those. These two fabulous Porsches took to the track against a mixture of Corvettes, Bizzarrini’s, E-Types, Cobra’s and more for the Graham Hill Trophy, which was eventually won by a TVR Griffith.

Away from the racing action, as well as the usual retail and catering outlets, there was a major auction as part of the weekend, hosted by Bonhams, where some fairly modest classics were to be found in among the more exotic and high-end cars on offer. Two of my favourites were a delightful 1961 BMW 700 saloon that sold with no reserve for only £6,900 – a bargain and well under estimate and an absolutely lovely 1960 Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider in dark blue that found a lucky new owner for £92,000 including premium.

One of the more unusual lots was a 1965 Lotus Elan S2 Shapecraft Fastback Coupé; 15 such conversions are known to have been produced – one of which competed in the Graham Hill Trophy. I’m unconvinced as to how successful this conversion is in styling terms, a feeling seemingly shared in the room as bidding petered out at £28,000.

There were a few signs of the harder times for classic car auctions, particularly in the bidding for a very nice BMW 3.0CSL in Taiga Green. The already reasonable estimate range of £65-85,000 wasn’t even approached as bidding stopped at just £50,000, unthinkable just a few years ago.

Back out in the paddocks and on the track, there were many more delights to be found including some 30 Mustang notchbacks that were competing in the Ken Miles Trophy, no fewer than 20 Bugatti’s – 18 of them Type 35’s – that tussled for the Grover-Williams Trophy, and not forgetting the Group 1 touring cars of the ‘70s, cars that actually looked like ones we could buy back in the day, competing for the Gordon Spice Trophy, won by the number 15 Ford Mustang Boss 302 defeating a horde of Camaro’s, Rover SD1’s, Ford Capri’s and more.

Two more favourite categories of mine were the Peter Collins Trophy, full of D-types, C-types, Maserati 250 and 300S’s – one of the former taking the chequered flag in first place – a superb Aston Martin DB3S and a very lovely 1953 Alfa Romeo “Disco Volante”, and the Surtees Trophy with the likes of mighty Lola T70’s and Ford GT40’s fighting for track space. For those who are interested, a full set of the race results is available here: 81MM race results | GRR (goodwood.com).

Taking its cue from the super-successful Goodwood Revival Car Show, the GRRC tried to introduce a similar classic car park last year, but was defeated by the weather. This year, however, conditions were substantially better and as well as the premium parking area on the Lavant straight, there was an area set aside for visitors to park their pre-1993 cars, and while this was nothing like the scale of the Revival Car Show (visitor numbers for the MM are much lower than for the Revival), there was still plenty of interest to look at, and we ended our day surrounded by classic road cars. At the Lavant location, the sublime 1967 metallic burgundy Maserati Sebring was just breath-taking, as was the imposing 1921 Hispano-Suiza, but exquisite as these two were, I also loved seeing the little 1989 Vauxhall Nova saloon and 1981 Vauxhall Chevette, both in blue and completely at the other end of the classic car spectrum.

In the pre-’93 field, personal favourites included the 1971 Monteverdi High Speed 375L – even the garish decals along the bottom of each door couldn’t ruin this beauty for me. Other eyecatchers included the stylish Italian pairing of a 1953 Alfa Romeo 1900 Sport and a metallic blue 1971 FIAT Dino coupé – there was also a fine example of the FIAT’s Spyder sibling – and early (1953) Porsche 356 1500 parked among some of its younger brothers.

This was certainly the most enjoyable of my MM visits to date, aided of course by the weather, but those Can-Am cars were the icing on an already very rich cake. I think I’ll just have to renew my membership so that I can go to MM82 next year. Meanwhile, please enjoy the random selection of photos in the gallery below – and you can believe I could have doubled the number!